From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

LEFT: Harrison and Billie with
their children, 1976.
Front row: (left to right) Ann,
Gillian, Billie.
Back row: Peter, Harrison,
Mark, Laura.
rIGhT: Family photo: Wallace
and Margie (far left and right),
with Eleanor, Michael, Scott,
and Martha, 1979.
customers who wouldn’t pay. Sales dropped, but the company became profitable. To
keep the momentum going, he introduced bonus schemes for key employees based
on several factors, on-time delivery and sales growth among them. Day & Ross has
become one of the most successful operating companies in the McCain group. A key
ingredient, Doucet says, was the financial backing McCain provided. “If we want to
buy equipment and put in more terminals and infrastructure, it’s always positive.”
When Doucet arrived in 1992, Day & Ross was doing $180 million worth of business
a year. By 2007, sales had climbed to $600 million and the goal, by 2009, is to
achieve $1 billion through a combination of organic growth and acquisitions.
Day & Ross celebrated its fiftieth anniversary in 2000. The Day & Ross transport
group includes such well-known companies as Sameday Right-O-Way, a courier service,
and Fastrax, a truckload operator. The Day & Ross companies operate from
coast to coast in Canada, as well as in the United States under the name McCain
Transport. As of 2007, the group boasted a fleet of 1,500 owner-operated trucks and
2,500 company-owned trailers, operating out of forty terminals across Canada, with
4,100 employees and owner-operators.
Because the drivers are owner-operators rather than employees, they are highly
motivated, says Doucet. “You’ve got all these people, several thousand of them,
running their own business and trying to generate more business for themselves.
When Day & Ross loses a customer, the driver could lose his job, so he’s got to
take care of those customers. They are just as much or more his customers as they
are mine.”
One of the industry’s problems is attracting skilled and motivated long-distance
drivers. “It’s a hard way to make a living,” Doucet says. “The driver may make an
average of $40,000 a year. And they are on the road every day.” But Doucet doesn’t
think a driver shortage will impede his ambitious growth plans. “If you pay the right
rate, if you treat your people right, you’ve got a better chance to attract them than
the next group. That’s what we try to do, treat them right and tell them they are part
of the success and the winning team.”
In 2007, Doucet marked his fifteenth year working for Day & Ross. He is also a
member of the McCain Foods senior leadership team that advises Dale Morrison on
strategy for the McCain group as a whole. But in 1992, during only his second week
on the job, Doucet wasn’t sure his career at McCain would be a long one.
Harrison McCain’s wife, Billie, had bought some furniture in Montreal and
Harrison asked Doucet to have one of his trucks pick it up. “I was worried that if anything
happened to that furniture, I would only have a job for two weeks,” Doucet recalls.
“I got two guys to go up, take a truck, get some blankets, and get that furniture.
I told them, ‘Don’t put it in with other stuff. You’ve got to take care of this furniture.’
“When they got to Florenceville, Billie wasn’t there, but the maid let them in. They
took the cover off the furniture, and then they called me – it seemed that the furniture
had rubbed against something; it looked damaged.
“I called Fredericton, got hold of an upholsterer, and said, ‘I don’t care what it
costs, you’ve got to get up here now and fix that furniture.’ So he drove up. Billie was
home by then. The upholsterer said, ‘I’m here to fix the furniture.’ She said, ‘It’s antique
furniture, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s supposed to look worn.’”
154 f rom the Ground up
the home front 155
LEFT: Wallace and Margie
celebrate Wallace’s receipt of
the Order of New Brunswick,
December 3, 2003. Wallace
is wearing his new Order on
a ribbon under the Order
of Canada; Margie wears
the insignia of the Order of
Canada, a Knight of the Order
of St. John, and the Order of
New Brunswick.
rIGhT: Harrison and Billie in
Bermuda, 1985.